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Just ONE more week before Arsenal boss can (almost) CHILL

While Arsene Wenger was having to try and keep Arsenal winning in four competitions with almost a full team of players missing due to various injury and fitness problems, I was always surprised to hear members of the football media and even Arsenal fans dismiss the affect that this was having.

I wonder if those same people still believe it. Maybe they do and maybe they think it was just a coincidence that the Gunners produced the best and most sustained spell of successful games once the injury list had dwindled to just a few names towards the end of last year.

I am convinced, however, that keeping our injury list short is a major key to Arsenal winning the marathon that is the Premier League next season and it is looking good for us at the minute. In just over a week we will hopefully be able to really look ahead with optimism, provided that the many Arsenal stars on international duty in the friendly games and Euro qualifiers come through them unscathed.

Wenger still has to worry about Alexis at the Copa America but we already expect the Chilean to miss the start of the season. Once England and Spain play next Sunday though, the boss will hope to have a full squad of fit and fresh Gunners ready for the Community Shield at the start of August.

Do you think an injury free Arsenal has what it takes to beat Chelsea, Man City and United to the Premier League trophy?

And we’re better defensively than Juve? Being able to handle a big occasion is another aspect needed to be a top team. We flop every year in R16. We aren’t on the same level as the best in Europe, no English team is at the moment and I think its silly to think otherwise.

I agree, but Arsenal and Chelsea are two different clubs. I dont think we need to be 100% ruthless. If we were, then Coquelin would have never gotten into the team, and lets be honest, he’s been our CDM answer that we haven’t had since Invincibles. Areas we do need to be ruthless though are GK and striker. Giroud is good, just not good enough if we want to win the big trophies. Same with Ospina. And same with Mertesacker as CB. Its one of the things we like and hate about Arsenal. We always give players a chance. I think its important to win things, but also to have an identity, which arsenal does have, and I’m happy about that. But yeah, wouldn’t mind if we started to get more ruthless as well. If we dont upgrade in certain areas this summer I dont see us winning EPL.

@RHS
If you want to be a top top club you must be RUTHLESS. Is that simple. I agree with the Coq example. But there are loads of times we have not been ruthless enough.
If we want to win we must make these big big changes. Soon you will see and Artcle saying “THE CASE FOR DANNY WELBECK AND WHY ARSENAL SHOULD NOT BUY A NEW STRIKERr.

Barca sold sanchez a worldclass player to Buy Suarez who is even a sweeter wine. Then when they got Suarez they didn’t care about Pedro who is home grown. They didn’t say what will happen to pedro. That how they big club act. they always think ahead.
Juve have signed Dybala and Khedira will be annaouced next week. You try to improve all the time and not stay there and stand still.

When you come to this forum fans are so emotional like the club

WHAT WILL HAPPEN TO WELBECK DEVELOPEMET
WHAT ABOUT YAYA SANOGO
WE SHOULD NOT BUY VIDAL WHAT ABOUT ZAELEM

Attitudes like that is what differentiates the biggest clubs from Arsenal.

But buying and buying isnt the answer either. For all the money PSG spend, lest be honest, they should be better. You mention Barcelona but half of their players have come from their youth academy. As I said, I love winning and everything, but the reason I’m an Arsenal fan isn’t just to win. I love the culture and identity of the club as well. Maybe its just a difference of opinion I suppose. Football is partly emotion so to say Arsenal should lose all emotion, I would be upset if that happened and we started playing defensive football like Chelsea. I dont think Arsenal should be 100% emotional and I do think more ruthlessness is needed though. Wenger also needs to be less emotional as well. The beginning of the season he changes a succesful 4-2-3-1 formation and plays 4141 just to include Wilshere and it obviously backfired. Some things as Arsenal need to change for sure, but I dont think vigorously buying players is the best answer because it doesnt guarantee success. Barcelona are the best club of the 21st century and its not soley based on spending. Real Madrid spend way more and always are a step behind them. Arsenal need to find the right mix of ruthlessness and patience. At the moment its too much patience.

Too true, they are not like us. Many on here are jealous, many are glad, and that is what divides us as a fan-base like no other club. Call it ambition, call it ruthless – but you could never call it genius, imaginative or inspiring. Keep buying and selling £20-50M players until you get it right. Stock-piling loan players as a side business. Have a self-serving youth system that is successful but entirely disconnected with the first team/squad. Buying the same off the shelf big name “finished products” year in year out. Working out how to park yet bigger buses. They are having their time in the sun, the world will turn and we will still be Arsenal. Who knows what happens to Chelsea post-RA. Who cares.

Maybe we just have to wait until Mou’s third season – his traditional P45 time. Whatever Mou does – I’ll predict with confidence he will be in a harder fight for the PL this year and he won’t win UCL.

@NY common man be realistic. They have Pogba,Vidal,Marchisio and Pirlo in midfield who all played their hearts out. They have one of the best defenses in the world, they have a legend at goal. And from what i have seen they didnt let sht happen to them at all, sht just happened because of the quality of Barca.

Juve turned up and played fantastic football, but the Trident is practically unstoppable.

@Jimbeam
Juve got pulled out of shape at the back by some training ground 1-2 passing. Evra got caught ball watchin and Suarez ghosted in and scored. I won’t even mention that last goal. Shoddy defending. Point blank.
Damn right we would have defended better than that.

its always easy to point out errors after goals have been scored. How many times this season have we also given up goals from shoddy defending? And from opponents of far less caliber than Barcelona? I don’t think we can be saying we’re equal to Barcelona when we cannot even get past Monaco. We have a long ways to go to be one of the best in Europe. Ugh… when will the day come when we list our 1st European Cup… We can dream

its easy to defend against Messi, Neymar and Suarez? Look at the goals again, they arent just by chance. For the first goal, Messi switched the play and Rakitic and Iniesta made runs from midfield, while at the same time Neymar was making Lichsteiner look silly on the right. Two quick passes and Rakitic had a tap in. Do you understand how good Barca are at moving defenders around to open space, and then quickly exploiting that space? As i said, its SO easy to criticize a team after a goal has been scored, but you really have no idea unless you are on the pitch. 95% of goals come from errors defensively. The rest are either luck or pure magic.You are suggesting Arsenal can defend against any type of attack and thats just ridiculous. You say these things because they are easy to say as a spectator.

@RSH
1st off dude. Any team can defend against any type of attack. By simply defending well . When you make defensive errors, thats when goals get scored against you. Luck has “zero” to do with anything in real time.

@NY there would be 0 goals in football without errors. Good attacks push the defenses to make errors. It could be quick passing, it could be an amazing dribble or a fierce shot and all that would have been stopped if the defense didnt loose shape, or if the midfield came to help, or if the right back threw himself at the ball, or if the goalie was better etc, etc..

this Barcelona team is almost unstoppable, if they are having an off day and the other team is playing the game of their lives maybe and only maybe then.

You can stand by anything you want man, wrong or right. You are saying that Juventus have themselves to blame and everybody else is applauding the way they played. Barca would make any defense make mistakes, can you actually see Per trying to stop Messi?

No one is stretching your words out, sometimes you just have to admit you are wrong and move on.

They do have a legend in goal but we would hang Szczesny out to dry if had spilled that ball to Suarez so only fair we criticise another goalie otherwise some on here will start getting too comfortable with the idea that it is only our GKs who mess up. Ditto for ter Stegen.

I don’t think this team can win the premier league next season. But with the right additions we can. I said last time that only 3 Arsenal players will start for chelase and only 1 will start for barcelona.

Arsenal and Chelsea combine team.

————Curtois—————-
Ivanovix–Terry–Kosieny–Azipueta

—————–Matic——————-
sanchez—-Cesc—Rambo—-Hazard

——————Costa—————

Arsena and Barcelona combine team.

—————-ter steghan————
Alves——pique—-kosieny—Alba

—————Busquet————

messi—-rackitic—-iniesta—-Neymar

——————suarez—————–

So people saying we are close to winning the league without improving the team are in dreamland. Look at Suarez? that is £75m well spent. giroud and Welbeck combine will never do some of the things suarez can do. Thats why i say if a worldclass striker is availble lets get him without been emotional.
You don’t hear barca fans saying what will happen to Pedro if we buy Suarez. Hope wenger watch the game today. We are far behind both Juventus and barcelona.

I will get loads of thumbs down but i always tru to say the truth and not act bais because i love Arsenal.. we are very far behind.

Bellerin over Ivanovic?! Your having a laugh. “He is that good going forward.” How many goals/assists has he got compared to Ivanovic? You’re comparing a WC player to a very good prospect… In a few seasons yes, but not just yet.

Not just the goals and assists as he is also excellent at defending whether playing CB or FB.

In the barca team from Galen i would put either Bellerin or Debuchy ahead of Alves, in pecking order i would put both ahead. Also i would have Sanchez over Neymar, i think they only sold Sanchez because of the similarities he has with Suarez and if it wasnt for that then Neymar would be the one sold. Then i would also have Ozil or Cazorla in ahead of Rakitic, personally Cazorla for me. What about Xavi though?

Galens che team i cannot differ with… maybe Arsene for manager and mour for waterboy.

Monreal is better than azilpueta and Coq better than matic? See am and arsenal fann but you need to be mature and watch games abit more. In the words of Arsene wenger. ” Everyman thinks his wife is the most beautiful”
Am sorry buddy. Azipueta is the best fullback in the league. both as a RB and as a LB he is faultless. Monrel has improved though.

Coq has been great for 6 months. lets watch him for a full season and analyse him after that. Thanks

Bellerin over Ivanovic? Now you are absolutely mad. Bellerin has alot to learn. he relies toomuch on his pace and makes silly challenges. look at nacho he is slower than bell and Gibbs but he is like fine wine. He knows exactly when to atck and when to stay back. he has got the balance right. Kyle walker is one of the quickest but also one of the dullest fullbacks in the league.

A weakness of Bellerins i hate to admit is aerial prowess, he just doesnt like to come and header a ball. he hasnt been exposed to often and nothing serious but whenever ball floats over by back post Bell will try and shield it out.

I think teams will try and work this a little more next season as he is not unknown anymore, Gibbs was targeted in a similar way during first years especially facing Bolton Newc and other hackensack teams.

are you serious? rambo is really underated by artsenal fans. I guess that is why Barca wnats to buy him. from watching Vidal today he is and older version of rambo. A great box to box. saying we have only Coq that tackles is joke. rambo is terrific. he is the msot complete midfielder at our club. thats why barca wants him. My barca mates are saying is either him or Pogba to replace xavi. nothing else.

We are been bossed about because we play ozil and Cazorla centrally. No team does that. I don’t know any team that does that. We need rambo in there. Even barca has rackitic and busquet.

Have to say though, for the guy at the top of their 4 man diamond midfield he didn’t do much with the ball – and he makes Flamini look quite “long-fused” and hesitant in the tackle. Do like the guy though.

And for all the Wenger is mental/not listening to the fans “stupid putting Ramsey on the wing” mob – are any of you going to tell me Pogba was Juve’s “winger” tonight? He did afteralll play on the right of the midfield. Anyone notice what the RB Lichtsteiner was up to? A team without wingers who would have thunked it.

By the way Aaron Ramsey is talking trash when he says we don’t need to strengthen the squad. What planet is he talking from? Utter gibberish! 12 points behind Chelsea and a lot of ground to make up and he comes and says things like that. Stupid boy!

The same Ramsey who if we don’t win anything for the next 4 years will probably be sold to the biggest clubs and he will be elated by it.
Sometimes these players have no clue about what is and what isn’t good for the team.

Hey Chas – bang on the money. I sometimes wonder how many on here hold down day jobs or ever get out of their houses to have a peek at the real world. But I am a generous soul and normally put it down to naivety rather than stupidity.

I definitely believe that if we could get to the bottom of our injury woes and significantly reduce them, we’d automatically have a squad that would go much closer (I know; I’m being captain obvious here :D).

I also think that AW showing the tactical nous we all know he has, instead of playing the same way against so many teams parking the bus against us then hitting us on the break, would be another key to us winning the title. We have enough to break down plenty of teams playing our usual way, but we underestimate how good we can be when we do things a little bit differently with a game plan. And of course, reducing injuries greatly increases our ability to do things a little bit differently.

So in terms of strengthening I’m all for Cech, Schneiderlin and an extremely mobile and instinctive poacher up front (plenty of discussion as to who that might be…).

who says world class players don’t bring u trophies? …..Who says u dn’t need to spend in order to gain?……. Luis Enrique all the way from celta vigo (do u knw where they sat on the table?) to winning the champions league with barca …..splashed the cash on suarez + a few key additions to an already Tough Looking squad…… U see, sometimes u don’t have to be a Top Top manager before winning the League…… Making the right additions and altering ur tactics to suit the opponent can bring u reward…… My friend, MONEY and WISDOM is Good for a Team to compete…

UCL Final convinced me that vidal is not the answer. I am convinced coqelin will be vidal in a few years time… if Wenger and his French connection has any substance I’d see him pay an arm and a leg for Pogba who bullied the likes of Messi, Suarez and Dani Alves on the Pitch. Otherwise lets go for an out and out world class DM to respectfully put the great potential of le coq on the bench next season.

if it werent a final Pogba probably would’ve been sent off honestly. Fouled way too much. I rate him, but I dont see how Pogba is an 80mill player. I think a player like Verrati would be much better for us, but either way both those players are close to impossible to get unless you are Barca or Real Madrid.

And idk about Coquelin being like Vidal. Vidal is still way more attacking. Coquelin doesnt contribute much to attack at all, though he did start to try more adventurous deep balls later on in the season which was nice to see. Vidal is still more b2b more than anything. Juve’s midfield operates vastly different to ours.

Agree on Coqelin in the attacking sense but defensively coqelin will be like vidal or even better soon if he keeps progressing. Pogba is physical well balanced, keeps his head under presssure and remember he’s still just 22 yrs old.

Fouls are a big part of a DM’s resume and I was already thinking of who I’d want in an Arsenal line-up next season against the likes of Matic and Wanyama…for me Pogba fits the bill.

If I didn’t know better and hadn’t watched both for a long time now, solely on tonights world-stage performances I wouldn’t be comfortable taking either Pogba or Vidal plus cash in exchange for Ramsey.

Time to say goodbye and Thanks for your service to Sanogo, Flamini, Diaby (or keep one year) Ryo, Podolski and Campbell. Raise some cash and free up wages. And maybe Arteta or keep him for one more year. Keep Rosicky for another year. He is still quality

Loan Bielik, Akpom, Hayden, Zelalem and Gnabry for more experience.

Keep Jenkison as 3rd RB or loan him again for more regular experience.

Sign some players. At least three: Defensive Midfielder and Striker. Also get young LB or a top defender who has versatility like Howedes

Walcott never stays fit. Have u seen Walcott staying fit any season. The best Walcott has stayed fit was couple of years ago when he scored 20 plus goals. It would be a big gamble if we keep faith in Walcott. We need a new striker inorder to compete with Chelsea and Man City.
Look at the striker of Chelsea and Man City and look at our striker its laughable. Even with quality strikers its difficult to win. What can u expect from a team with terrible striker.

The answer to the question is YES
If our team stays fit and healthy we can beat anyone.
Saw that form at the end of the he season? And we didn’t even had the full!
Never mind D two or three additions but our real issue is the medical one.

Full squad my ass. Arsenal don’t handle pressure well. People keep saying we perform with no injuries but we only perform when pressure is off. We did well this year until 2nd place was up for grabs,then we bottled that up.